Pennsylvania has its Yuengling, and Tennessee has its Jack Daniel’s. California claims Sierra Nevada, and Colorado names Coors. Thrillist mapped out the top beer and alcohol brands by state—and it makes for one beautiful, boozy land of the free.

The Beer Institute gets into the geographic swing of things as well with its recent release of a list of the top five states that buy the most beer per capita in general: North Dakota, New Hampshire, Montana, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The states that purchase the least? Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and, not surprisingly, Utah, where a good number of the state’s population is Mormon, which does not allow alcohol consumption.

The Beer Institute also pointed out that last year’s Fourth of July was a banner time for beer sellers. In the two weeks that ended July 7 last year, beer sales were higher than any other food or beverage category measured by Nielsen. More than milk, bread, soda, baby formula—everything.Continue reading...

Increasingly flexing its muscle as the premier ad platform for digital, Twitter is joining forces with Everyday Health to deliver public-health alerts and sell health-related ad packages through a joint “HealthBeat” product.

“We’ll be looking at the key health terms flaring up every day, and when something is indexing in an abnormal way we'll let Twitter know and we'll supply content about what to do,” Michael Keriakos, Everyday Health’s president, told AdAge.

The publisher, which owns several properties including Daily Glow and Jillian Michaels, said that not all content will be sponsored, but it is seeking advertisers for broader health topics like allergies and insomnia, which would leverage Twitter's ad targeting abilities.Continue reading...

SPAM, the oft maligned Hormel canned meat product that helped Americans survive the Depression and fed the allied troops during World War II is cultivating a new generation of fans and consumers thanks to a new spokesman and a long-standing relationship with its ad agency.

SPAM remains a staple among US consumers and is now available in 44 countries, with US sales up nearly 7 percent year-over-year in the last 12 months. A lot of that consistent growth is a direct result of the on-going, unique relationship with BBDO, which has serviced every Hormel brand since 1930, from Dinty Moore stew to Jennie-O turkey. That unusual longevity has garnered Ad Age’s top honors in their first agency-client-marriage contest.Continue reading...

Thanksgiving is coming up. And while cans of vegetables will last for years, Del Monte decided that the timing couldn't be better to remind American consumers about the easiest way to elbow onto the Turkey Day table with side dishes worthy of the buxom bird: get them out of a can. Preferably a can of Del Monte vegetables.

So the brand is launching its most extensive and expensive ad campaign in a decade, under the tagline "Bursting with Life." The idea is to emphasize the freshness of Del Monte vegetables — an attribute that consumers don't naturally associate with foods that have been preserved in a cylinder of metal for weeks or months.

While they're not trying to make eating your veggies (let alone canned veggies) sexy, Del Monte hopes to claim a bigger share of mind stomach of a collective American household that at least is thinking more about vegetables these days, and the nutritional value of consuming them.Continue reading...

Social innovation is at an all time high and campaigns integrated with social media are the latest incarnation exemplified by the new Mercedes-Benz #YOUDRIVE Twitter campaign, which will let fans help shape the ending. Ever the innovator on digital, Mercedes-Benz is up 10 percent in Interbrand's just-announced 2012 Best Global Brands report.

TV viewers in the UK will ‘drive the action’ of a three-part story about the new Mercedes-Benz A-Class to be shown this weekend during commercial breaks in "The X Factor." A cat and mouse caper features a young music star (played by Top Boy actor Kane Robinson) aided by a female accomplice attempting to secure a secret gig that authorities are keen to close down.Continue reading...